Maj. Thomas G. Jones, Faculty '53-'79;
Died at age 70 Saturday, December 18, 1993, at Veterans Hospital in Murfreesboro. He was the son of the late Clarence T. and Mildred Griggs Jones of the Burwood Community in Williamson County. He lived most of his early life in Old Hickory and was a graduate of Dupont High School where he excelled in sports (a member of the 1942 State Championship Football Team).
Combat English Revisited
by B.E. Clement Jr.
When my friend Jack Muth published Coach Thomas G. Jones, An Inspiration Academically & Physically… A Discipline for Life, he eloquently expressed the sentiment of many Columbia Military Academy cadets. Coach Jones was one of the most beloved characters of our Columbia Military Academy experience. While the following account, composed more than 30 years after the fact, sacrifices some historical specificity for the sake of brevity, it represents a sincere effort to preserve for posterity the essence of Coach Jones’ unique style of instruction. It is once again Fall, 1963:
“Welcome to Combat English gentlemen. My name is Tom Jones. In my class you will learn English or you will quickly learn why it’s called ‘Combat English.’ The day that I can’t teach anyone that walks through that door is the day that I hang up my jock strap!” With those unforgettable words he
hung an imaginary jock on an imaginary peg in a very real 3×4 inch fracture in the slate chalk board. As nervous laughter ensued from the class, I wondered how the eye level fracture came to be in the slate. “Gentlemen, you have in your possession what you perceive to be an ordinary text book. You will come to reverence that book as ‘Jones’ Bible.’ You will faithfully commit its’ sacred text to memory. When I ask you to recite the tenants of your new found faith, you will not attempt to ‘BS’ me! Gentlemen, I suffer chronic rectum-eye-litis. Do you know what rectum-eye-litis is gentlemen? It is the inflammation of the nerve that runs from my rectum to the retina of my eyeball. This affliction predisposes me a very crappy outlook on life. “BS” inflames that nerve. Pray that you do not aggravate my delicate medical condition, gentlemen.”
If you had not mastered an assignment before entering Coach Jones’ classroom there was no way to prepare for what would follow. Coach would ask a question, then select who was to answer. With
the supple flick of his wrist, Coach would “zing” inattentive cadets with pieces of chalk. The spent projectiles were eagerly recovered for coach by fellow classmates. To nod off was to be awakened by heavy ordnance… Webster’s New World Dictionary. As the hefty volume became airborne to its sedentary objective, the cover would flutter off like a startled egret.
Coach silently recorded a “+” in his red teacher’s ledger for each correct answer and then moved promptly elsewhere with the next question. If a response was slow in coming, he chided impatiently, “Hells Bells son, grandma was slow, but she was 120 years old!” To an incorrect answer he would comment dryly, “I see.” Then record a “0” and immediately ask the same question to another cadet. After accumulating two consecutive zeroes, Coach Jones would rise, walk over, bend down and peer into your eyes as he described the severity of your transgression. The longer Coach talked, the more incensed he would become. The higher
decibel portions of Coach’s speech resonated via the hall to adjoining classrooms. Coach would conclude his orations with admonitions such as: “The next time I find you in cerebral La La Land in my class, we will have a three-legged race to the hospital to have my foot removed from your backside!”
At Columbia Military Academy the paddles used in corporal punishment were regulation baseball bats that had been planed down to one-half thickness on the business end. Unruly cadets were obliged to bend over, grab their ankles and look at the wall as the instructor stepped up to the plate. As in Major League games, the batters seldom “bunted” opting rather for the “home run” hits. Coach Jones’ massive size was taken into account as he graphically advised us. “When my board is finished with your butt you’ll be a month stopping your nosebleed!” There was no doubt among the Cadet Corps, Coach Jones’ was the Columbia Military Academy’s Babe Ruth.
If you tried to “BS” or “brown nose” Coach Jones, the situation would abruptly escalate from, “Boy, you make my butt want to suck a lemon.” into a desk slamming, trash can stomping fit. Coach on such occasions lifted his full-sized desk lengthwise from the floor and dropped it. Once, after kicking his trash can around the room, he restored it to a facsimile of its original form with his fist. After such demonstrations Coach would present the target of his tirade with a piece of paper to write his mother or a dime to call his congressman about “what an old, mean, Coach Jones had done to their little darling.” Coach sometimes would hold the door open and extend the opportunity for any malcontent to remonstrate at the administration building. He would bellow, “I’ve been fired from better places than this!”
I will never forget the time a friend of mine came into class unprepared. He had an IQ of 142, came from an affluent family, and was very unmotivated academically. After a brief, unsatisfactory discourse,
Coach snatched his wayward subject from his seat by his Eisenhower jacket and held him at arms length through the window saying, “If you enter my classroom unprepared again, I will drop you from this window.”
Coach’s medical condition was aggravated big time the day a lanky, red-haired, freckle-faced fellow ventured a smirk during one of Coach’s orations. This cadet was operating under the theory (delusion) that he had espoused to me only the day before. He thought that Coach Jones knew who to pick on and who to avoid. The fellow explained that he too, was hot tempered, had lighting reflexes, could “bust windshields” with his bare fist, etc., etc. He believed Coach sensed he was so constituted and would, therefore, be reluctant to confront him in the manner he so often engaged others. As Coach bent down for his trademark close-up facial encounter, the young man displayed a calculated measure of displeasure by looking away and then indifference by shrugging his shoulders. Coach, not
one to let even subtle body statements go unchallenged, exploded like Mount Vesuvius.
In a millisecond, Coach’s foot transformed the arm and articles atop the adjacent desk to shrapnel. Books flew. A three ring binder disgorged its contents mid-air, showering the class with notebook paper. Coach rotated 180 degrees and ended forever speculation as to how the fracture had come to be in the chalk board by imparting a fresh imprint of his fist in the slate. Coach then refocused his attention on the young man who had been rendered totally inert by the power of the eruption. His face was ashen and freckle-less.
The drama climaxed with signs and wonders following. First a mighty horn sounded. Likening unto the trump of the archangel, Gabriel. Next the floors of grand ole Main Building began to tremble and rattle. then time stood still as Coach scowled wide-eyed and motionless in the face of his new convert both of whom seemed oblivious of the
diesel train now thundering along the tracks below. The mangled desk was relegated overnight to the corner of the room, where for the remainder of the semester, it emanated the mystical ambiance of some great battlefield relic.
The last time I saw Coach Jones was in the summer of 1969, when I brought a college roommate to visit my Alma Mater. As we drove on campus I immediately spotted Coach Jones walking from Main toward Ragsdale Hall. “There’s the guy I’ve been telling you about!” I exclaimed as I bounded from my 1941 Chevy to greet Coach. Coach grabbed, instead of my out-streched hand, the shoulder length hair on the back of my head. He drew my face to his and grimaced as he beheld with mock horror my hippie-like appearance. His absolute disdain was epitomized in the only word he uttered as he lowered the back of my head to the pavement “yuck.”
I do not know if it was by divine appointment or the
pen stroke of a discerning registrar that determined who would be assigned to “Combat English.” It is difficult to imagine a personality better suited for imparting wisdom to the foolish of eliciting respect from the recalcitrant than that of Coach Jones. Because Coach was no respector of persons, his discipline was meted out impartially and judiciously. Coach’s expectations never exceeded the natural ability of the student. To whom much was given ability, much was required in performance. Also, because Coach tenaciously held the undivided attention of all his students, those who miserably failed other courses (due to attention deficit disorders, hyperactivity, low innate ability, boredom, etc.) passed and often excelled in “Combat English.” As a school teacher, employer, pastor and parent, I have often encountered people who would benefit most, as I did, from a no nonsense, “Combat” style course of instruction. In retrospect, I suspect that Coach was as sensitive and introspective as he appeared fearless and formidable. In any case, Coach Jones was an admirable man with a mission to teach and teach he did.